English 239 @ Illinois State University

Tag Archives: CFP

[argh, there is nothing like losing 20 minutes worth of posting because you accidentally hit the wrong button. grumble grumble…. here’s take 2.]

Due: 4:30pm Monday, October 13.

What: High-quality version of revised video CFP. High quality = exported for best playback on computer (MovieMaker) or DVD/CD quality (iMovie), or similar wording. The goal is to give me a BIG copy, not a small, super-compressed copy.

make an appt with me by Sunday 4pm to meet with me sometime on Monday to hand me your flash drive with your video on it

drop off a CD or DVD to the english dept office by 4:30 Monday. They’ll put it in my mailbox.

I’ll make a single DVD and take these to play at the conference. Below is the feedback from peer-reviewers. The first reviewer is a Watson attendee, the second is not, so take your audience feedback into consideration when revising. You’ll have to match up URLs to actual people, sorry.

I thought this was pretty effective, but as it remains analog/physical throughout, it does lose some of the effect of the challenge of working between/with two ‘media,’ if such a simple term can cover the difference. I’m thinking of Michael Wesch’s really impressive “A Vision of Students Today” and how effective the mix of media is in that video.

I really liked. (As a nonspecialist) I think that the combination of new technology and old technology was especially poignant. At one point about 2/3 in, the music sounded like it was looped and got distracting. I love Dylan so it was reminiscent of the classic video for “Subterranean Homesick Blues” without being a copy.

Effective introduction, but the interview at the end seems to close elements of the conversation, at least to me, by giving an opinion. Also, the typing effect is supportive of the message in the early part of the video, but I think near the end it becomes more tiring than dynamic. Going back to the nameless PowerPoint scholarship (I can hunt this down if desired; I really need to build a reference database instead of relying on my already failing memory!), I’m wondering if the animation at that point supports the message.

I’m reminded of Michael Wesch’s work with this one (and I should be, since it’s part of it). I really dug it and found it to be effective. It could be complicated, of course, but anything could be and it might lose effectiveness. I think that maybe the visual balance of the URL might be improved, but that’s probably more a personal thing (I’d rather logically balance by organizational units than justify it as a text block and I don’t think http:// is necessary these days for URLs in videos).

was very interesting visually, but the music was a bit too choppy and the use of “Imagine” after writing the word “Imagine” on the screen was just too predictable.

I don’t know about the use of The Matrix to support these questions, but I’m probably just being finicky (a professional antagonism that developed while I worked in information security and had to endure endless comparisons between my work and the Matrix). I think the film might, instead of engendering new questions, confirm existing expectations of the work of new media studies because of the very expected man vs. machine structure of the film and its place in culture. Putting that aside, my concerns are that the text is too small and that, like the others, the typing effect works early on but then gets in the way of the information later on. Also, the sound on the Matrix clip could use a boost.

I love the opening and I love the first question (and its use of Sex and the City, which at 32 I absolutely know), but the second question and the Dead Poet’s Society clip loses the focus on composition (and the changes) and starts entering into the types of questions that Ray Kurzweil ponders. While these are some fascinating questions, I don’t know if it matches the focus that I see in the first question and in the other CFPs I’ve seen so far.

typo: “If technology make humans obsolete…” From an English major even….

Effective introduction, but the exploding graphics may be a bit too much, a bit too focused on ‘I can do this with text’ rather than the function of the CFP. Much of the scholarship on animation and PowerPoint covers my concerns on this (sorry, I don’t have names right now).

was OK, but it felt more like a public service announcement warning me of the dangers of teenage computer abuse. Maybe I just don’t like being attacked by yellow letters on a black background.

I like the concept on this one quite a bit as the pure analog format seems to fit the function. It’s direct, to the point, and I think the music is an especially good choice (like the format, it’s not expected). However, I think some of those pieces of paper need to be re-written (traditional is fairly hard to read and the web address is illegible, at least to me – I struggled to recognize the URL of my own school!). I liked the playing around with moving things to and from the camera, which I think could work in the same way that effective text animation works.

On the video side, maybe a bit too heavy on the textual animation (especially when the words “How will the idea of writing change?” flew past), but otherwise the question of what is composition might take a bit from the other videos that included texting and other, less omnipresent technology (rather than the computer as word processor, which is pretty set in my mind).

The last one was good, too, except that the web addresses were unreadable (blue letters against blue sky).

OVERALL COMMENTS:

All in all, some awesome, really impressive work. I hope some of this feedback is useful, and I hope the tone of this email doesn’t strike you as too unprofessional. If it does, my apologies.

Overall, I enjoyed seeing what your students are doing. Keep up the good work. Of course, I teach my Intro Linguistics students that 99% of all writing throughout human history is to fuel the economy and that is the specific reason that it was invented 5500 years ago or so. I wonder how that fits into the notion of “New Media” and “composition”?

Just a recap about the YouTube part of the assignment: Make sure that you treat the upload of the video as if the entire Internet (via the YT site) and specifically the Watson conference attendees are your audience. Make sure to provide some kind of citation and/or more information in the “more info” section of the upload. As well, give your video a good title that reflects its genre/purpose.

NOTE: Something I forgot to mention in class — make sure you export a BIG version of your CFP from MovieMaker/iMovie. Use the largest format available: in MM, this will be the “playback on my computer” setting (or similar). On iMovie, this will be the “CD-ROM or DVD” quality. This is so there won’t be any pixelation when we play these on the BIG screen in Louisville. 🙂 So — KEEP this large version handy (for me to compile later, after we do any more revisions, if necessary). When you upload this large version to YouTube, it will compress everything to their needs. K?

Finally, just a reminder that Y’ALL TOTALLY ROCKED the CFP assignment. I am seriously impressed with your first drafts and am excited to see the (near) perfection that next week’s drafts will be. Yay!!!

Hey all. I will stop by the lab today around 4:30, but it might be closer to 5ish. Also, we will have lab hours, with Andrew’s help, from 2pm-8pm tomorrow. We may not be there the whole time, but the lab WILL BE OPEN for you to use.

Secondly, for those who wanted a permanent-ish URL for the book CFP, use this one:

http://louisville.edu/conference/watson/book

It’s not live yet, but it’ll prolly be what the actual URL is. And we can always change it later, especially seeing as what’s due tomorrow night is your first draft, so revision will likely be in order before the conference.